To decrease the size of a saw and to facilitate the transportation thereof is a desirable feature for bow saws. It would also be useful to decrease the dimensions of hack saws, which also have to be transported. A smaller size for each of these types of saws is also practical for storage purposes.
In picnic-saws, many kinds of solutions have been developed, the purpose thereof being to include the sharp teeth of the saw inside the construction in such a way that they may not cause any damage during transportation. In numerous known collapsible bow saws, the blade part is detachable and the bow-like frame part is collapsible. After detaching the blade, the collapsible frame part is folded to the transportation position and the blade is secured e.g. by slipping it into a tube belonging to the frame part or by pushing it into a suitable groove.
However, no such solutions have been developed for the conventional bow saw constructions. The transportation and storage of these saws is still difficult, as the saws are fairly big and have a difficult shape. Further, there is no lasting and safe blade cover available for bow saws.
A hack saw also requires a lot of space in the utensil box, due to its difficult shape. Although the blade of a hack saw is not as sharp as that of wood saws, a blade cover would nevertheless be good to have. No lasting and safe blade cover is available for hack saws, either.
A disadvantage of known collapsible saws, which usually are picnic saws, is that at least one part of the blade or another part of the saw has to be detached before the saw can be transformed into the transportation position. However, the detaching and assembling of the saw is troublesome. Patent publications U.S. Pat. No. 3,954,127, U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,816 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,930,420 disclose saw solutions, which are collapsible in such a way that the blade and/or a part of the blade's bow are detached or moved aside. In such a case, however, the bow of the saw has to be broken by unfastening or loosening a member that fixes the part of the bow, such as a nut or a bolt.
In collapsible form the prior art saws are more practical in view of transportation, but at the same time the collapsible form includes another disadvantage. Numerous known picnic or bow saws have the shape of a triangle, whereby the distance between the blade and the bow is short. This kind of a saw can not be used for sawing thick wood.